


To Make Him Human Again

by Anonymous



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan, aot, snk - Fandom
Genre: Eren and Levi - Freeform, Is like Canon, M/M, but not really at the same time, eren x levi - Freeform, ereri, levi x eren - Freeform, wild Eren
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-01-01
Updated: 2017-01-01
Packaged: 2018-09-14 01:47:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,626
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9151510
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: To tame a beast that was once human, one must act like one, think like one, and feel like one. Still, Levi knew he didn’t need to do that. He could shape the boy back into a human without having to degrade himself, or so he thought. What if the human that had been living in the wild for more than ten years had something else in sight?





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [people](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=people).



His heart was pounding out of his chest, for once in a lifetime. He had never seen such a thing like this. His breath intensified as the creature came closer to his face, tilting its head left and right to get a better look of his image as the wind was playing with the short brown locks of the being. It shot its glare back at the soldier. The being’s eyebrows were pulled down together as its eyes were open widely, its pupils getting smaller. The beast was moving forward towards the short man and was fuming, but other than that, it didn’t show any signs of wanting to attack him. Each and every well-defined muscle of it was tense and alert as it held the other man’s hand away from its own chest, fearing the weapon that it was steadily holding away. Truth be told, Humanity’s Strongest could have easily won the fight, but he just kept staring at the sight in front of him, his intuition telling him not to do anything.

The creature that probably indentified itself as a Titan had his teal eyes wide open and his nose scrunched up, showing his somewhat sharpened teeth. He looked like he was smiling, but he was just terrified of the man whom he was pushing against the tree he found him at. Of course, the interesting being didn’t think of the fact that the enemy he was holding back didn’t want to fight back, but the brown-haired human was going to stay alive. He just wanted to stay alive a little longer.

Levi kept staring back at the creature that had tried to kill him moments before, thinking of whether to kill it instead and continue forward, or help the miserable boy that undoubtedly wasn’t a Titan, no matter how much he tried to act and look like one.

First of all, the boy was almost his size, just a little taller, unlike other Titans. Furthermore, the creatures he hated had no clothes on, but the boy that was blocking him from escaping had worn-out trousers that were torn at various places, and a key hanging down his strong, long neck that was proudly raised to indicate dominance. And most importantly, Titans were expressionless monstrosities, unlike the boy that was growling at him like a wolf trying to protect its family.

Levi could sense his anger and fear by looking him in the eyes, and he didn’t plan on removing them from the wild man, because of obvious reasons. He might not be able to really use a weapon correctly, but his teeth looked like they could tear flesh off a body in an instant, and Levi didn’t want to return back to the base with a huge chunk of his face removed for no reason in particular, other than not wanting to kill the human in front of himself, simply because it was a human. Well, it looked like a human, anyways. And he felt sorry for him. After a few more heavy breaths into the black-haired man’s face, the other human backed off a little, just to stop growling and look at him from above. Levi doubted he could see much, just because of the fact that it was pitch black around them, and the dark clouds had almost completely covered the night sky. There was just a tiny speckle of white that the moon had left behind, so that they were still able to see to some extent.

_“How was he able to catch me off guard in such circumstances as these_ _…_ _? Titans can’t see shit at night, and this one acts like one? Well, a pathetic excuse for an abomination”_ , Levi thought to himself as he continued observing the muscled and scarred human that was blocking him the way. He didn’t have much to do, though, and didn’t have anything to lose. He had already lost his 3D maneuvering gear when the thing had jumped him and somehow managed to tear it from him while they were struggling to break free from each others’ grip, and he had already broken his leg, so even if he killed the Titan wannabe, he wouldn’t have much to do. He wasn’t in a hurry, probably because his communication link had been busted as well as his team and he tried to escape an outrageous number of Titans before, lead by this very human. No, they weren’t exactly lead by him; he was more of a lure that lead them towards those disgusting creatures. Seeing a human act like an animal had brought curiosity upon the whole squad, including Levi. And as the human ran ahead, he had led them directly towards the monsters.

“Hey, shithead. It’s your fault my entire squad’s dead, you know?” Levi suddenly muttered, making the human on top of him flinch. The teal-eyed being then got closer to his face again, silently growling at him. The Captain of his dead squad then growled back, just to make the other angrier, but the human just raised his head again and tilted it to observe the small figure beneath him. No matter how much Levi hated this… this _thing_ at the moment, he couldn’t bring himself to end his pathetic excuse of a life.

 “Why can’t I bring myself to kill you then…?” he continued in a bit softer tone, earning an intrigued glance from the thing that was on top of him, holding the shorter man down against a huge tree branch, “I kill Titans on a daily basis, and everything connected to them. I don’t care whether they’re human, or monster, or a big ass tree or something. Tell me, why am I reluctant to slice your nape, just like I had sliced the throats of thousands of your… ugh… disgusting friends out there?”

The wild human must have picked up Levi’s harsh tone of voice and the furious flare in his dull blue eyes, since he started growling again. After a few seconds the being snorted and looked away to see the cloud-covered sky.

_“Waiting for sunrise, huh_ _…_ _? He might be able to sense the coming of a new day, waiting for his Titan buddies to arrive_ _…_ _That thing might be smarter than it seems at first. Who knows? He might be a human after all_ _…_ _?”_ Levi shook his head. Such an odd beast couldn’t possibly be a human. Still, it awoke some sort of curiosity within him. And he was rarely curious.

_“Looks like he isn’t in it for the kill, which means I won’t have to worry till sunrise. Who knows why he ended up here, amongst all of these disgusting bastards and why they didn’t kill him as soon as they saw him_ _…_ _But who cares anyways. Just another human life that has gone to waste. Just like all of those damned wall worshipers.”_

For a moment, Levi decided to trail off and concentrated at the song of crickets that silently sang their own songs, which were soon connected into a heavenly symphony of nature. The wind was soundlessly creeping through the forest they were in, awakening leafage that started dancing at the touch of the gentle breeze, singing in union with the bugs. The tired Captain slowly closed his eyelids to suck in every last bit of nature around himself. This was exactly the reason why he had agreed to ever stay at the Survey Corps. Just to see what was outside the walls time and time again. He didn’t care whether it’d kill him.

However, he soon opened them back again when he heard a squeaky sound that sounded like it came from a dog, rather than a person. He frowned at the young face right in front of him.

“What the hell are you looking at, brat? Haven’t you seen a sleeping human before or some-“ realization suddenly hit him. Maybe he hadn’t. Although he knew the beast in front of him couldn’t understand a word he said, he still couldn’t help but to feel bad for no reason in particular. Why did this outsider get him so emotional all of a sudden? It was just waste of humanity, nothing else…

The human crept closer, watching Levi carefully as his body tensed up to the creature’s sudden movement. He tilted his head as if he had discovered something new. Levi stared, at this point. He shouldn’t have found this to be so entertaining. The Captain then frowned, furrowing his brows. To his surprise, the boy repeated his action.

_“Is he_ _…_ _seriously playing right now_ _…_ _? Looks like it has the mind of a five year old. Well. I’m not gonna pay any attention to him.”_

He then looked away from the beast that was trying to imitate his actions, clenching his teeth. He couldn’t believe a single human, let alone a stupid one like this thing sitting on him, could kill an entire squad of harshly and well-trained soldiers he had hand-picked just for the hardest of jobs and the worst of occasions. They had survived hundreds of battles even harder than these. The only reason they didn’t make it now was because of the fact that they had tried to rescue the poor wretch that had been stranded with those man-eating beasts… and in the end, it turned out that they had been outsmarted by the very person they had tried to save. Pathetic. His leadership was pathetic. He was pathetic. Levi suddenly clenched his fists as his whole body started to tremble in disgust of his failure, when suddenly, he stopped every movement and just let out a shaky breath. The person was breathing right into his neck, his wet lips occasionally touching his skin. With eyes wide open he looked at the human beside him, seeing that it seemingly hadn’t been done with exploring his presence. Levi clenched his teeth and hit him right into his stomach, so that the beast cried out loudly as he fell to the side, whimpering. The wounded soldier crawled towards him and grabbed him by the hair, pulling him up as the wild man’s whimpering continued. Levi bashed his head into the tree, thinking it would make him want to kill the beast that had killed everyone he still cared for. But no feeling of adrenaline ran through his body, and he knew the being wasn’t worth it. He then pulled his hair up again to see the human’s expression, and seeing it, Levi froze. He was surprised. There was no hint of fear in the eyes of the man he held by his shaggy hair anymore, and no sign of pain except for the silent squeals that came from the beast’s vocal cords.

_“Huh. Interesting. Is it regret, or is it hatred swirling in this boy’s eyes?_ _…_ _He isn’t scared, that much I can tell. As far as I can recall, people fear **one** of my glances, and this boy’s had to endure my beating and still looks me directly in the eye_ _…_ _?”_

The human growled at Levi, but didn’t fight back, like he was restrained here, in the boundless nature that had been his home for years by now. The moonlight shone on them, revealing the hatred that burned in the taller human’s eyes.

_“His eyes are filled with tears, tears burning like fire. Not from pain. It’s something else. Something I can’t really make out_ _…”_ the human, or whatever it was, let out a shaky breath as Levi’s hand twitched”, _That fire_ _…_ _it’s weak. Neglected. No one has been feeding it for years, it seems. But it flares his whole body to life, and his personality shines a new light. The endless sense of loss_ _…_ _and desire to kill. The boy’s soul is refined into something pure, into a monster with… fearsome beauty.”_

Levi then released him, falling back at his knees, staring at the wood beneath him. His leg hurt, but that wasn’t his concern at the moment. He was done for. The creature whose eyes he had just observed soon approached him again, circling around him on all fours, just like an animal, although he had shown behaviors similar to human behavior before. After realizing Levi won’t fight anymore, the being stopped right in front of him and sat down again, raising his hands up, but eventually giving up and just staring at the soldier whose right hand had hints of the blood the wild human had spat out. The soldier quickly realized the wild person wasn’t used to human company, considering how unsure he was acting. His body was twitching and his veins were tense, his eyesight right on the soldier, observing him carefully. Levi slowly raised his head back up, looking at the weird creature in front of himself, with an expression that didn’t reveal any of his emotions. The creature’s eyes still burned with the same desire to hurt. But he didn’t do anything. It didn’t take long for the Captain to realize that the monster with the key around his neck wasn’t afraid of him, but of the blood-stained blade he was holding. He looked at it from the side, then back at the monster whose small pupils kept piercing through his heart.

Levi released the blade he had been holding onto, facing the truth. He wasn’t the bender of his fate. He had lost his entire squad that day, wasn’t able to truly harm the monster who did it, and was now at mercy of that same being whose eyes were still flaring with life and emotion. And it was only fair to give this monster in front of him a chance to fight as well.

However, the wild human looked reluctant to fight and wasn’t moving at all for a minute. It looked peaceful to the point of actually seeming… thankful. Furious, Levi’s hands clenched into fists as he looked up at the taller human through his black bangs, releasing some kind of muffled growl himself.

“What are you waiting for?” he nearly whispered, which seemed to unnerve the young man, “Do it. End my life just like you did to my allies. Don’t be shy. I’ll just try to break your neck, scumbag.”

He knew calling a wild man names wasn’t going to escalate the plot, but he honestly didn’t know what to do from this point onwards. No one would ever find him now that he had lost every sort of contact potential. Considering he even succeeded in surviving, he’d pretty much be left alone in a huge forest full of man-eating giants anyways, so chances of survival were slim to say at least. And lashing his anger out on such a weird sight was his best way of telling: I screwed up.

“Hey! Are you even listening to me? I said _do it_ ”, he threatened, but the other man was just observing him thoroughly. And it made the Captain feel somewhat uncomfortable. Not to mention stupid, and wrong. He found himself wondering why he dropped the blade like it wasn’t his ticket to get out of the hell he was in.

_“And there I was. I chose the wrong option again. Even though I reacted fast and made my decision in an instant, it brought me back to my knees. Fate was laughing into my face. Is THIS the last thing I’ll ever see? A nosey brat with no human memory…?”_

He was looking at Levi in what seemed to be awe. He couldn’t remember the last time he had seen a real human up close, without the intention of hurting them. The last time he had contact with another real human being was at least twelve years ago, when he had seen his own father getting… devoured…  He wildly shook his head before leaning closer to the soldier again. He wanted to see every texture and every scratch on his face; he was fascinated by him.

“Would you look at that. You think I’m _that_ attractive, you piece of Titan trash?” he joked with no humor in his voice as he pushed the brunette away by harshly taking his well-structured arms and soon heard a painful moan escaping the human’s mouth. It sounded like a muffled Titan’s roar, and Levi was suddenly alarmed as he realized the human didn’t intend on stopping anytime soon. As the growls and roars of the boy kept getting louder, the soldier realized the boy was calling for help. In a desperate attempt to make him stop, he approached the beast again, only to almost have his finger bitten off as he seemingly came too close.

“Tsk.”

At least he had managed to make the other man stop crying out, but he still feared his gang might show up soon enough. But luckily for him, the Titans didn’t seem to care as much as the human wanted them to. The human, or beast, or whatever it was, had a disappointed face for a second, but that soon got replaced by the scrunched face of someone that was suffering a lot of pain, and was soon dragging his right side of the face all across the tree bark, groaning.

_“Inflicting new pain on himself to make the existing pain bearable?”_ Levi’s disinterested eyes traveled down the body of the man writhing in pain, but couldn’t detect anything other than a few infected injuries he had healing on his back. Levi’s nose scrunched up.  

“Hey”, a gentle tone escaped the shorter man’s mouth and the alarmed wild man immediately raised his head, his shoulders moving up to indicate that he was about to attack. The grayish-eyed man in his front was watching him carefully, with an expression the young man couldn’t possibly decipher. Confused, he tried to back away, but found himself almost falling down the tree since he reached the edge of the branch. A worried whimper escaped him and the Captain slowly crawled closer to him, holding his hands open. The beastly human looked from one hand to the other in confusion, seeing that there was nothing in them except for his own blood. His back started relaxing as the short man’s hands started getting closer to his shoulders.

“I might resent you, but we have a rule that says we must help every human in need”, he lied to himself to look over the fact that he actually felt sorry for the poor wretch that was the man in front of him, “Don’t worry. I don’t bite,” he said as his index finger passed through the boy’s locks, “Most of the time.”

The beast was still alert, but wasn’t moving as the soldier’s fingers searched for the source of pain, and would only twitch when he’d come close. His eyes weren’t focused on Levi’s hands though; they were searching for something in those dull eyes of his.

The wild man’s skin was unexpectedly soft, but was also very sticky, so Levi prayed it was just saliva. Suddenly, Levi felt something disgustingly wet on his finger tip, which made him pull back and look at the red liquid holding onto his pale skin. His expression shifted as he looked over to the right shoulder of the boy, realizing his arm was thoroughly sliced. Levi was surprised the cut didn’t reach the bone from the depth of it. The human was lucky. The Captain quickly bent down to reach a small bottle of some sort of liquid that the beastly human didn’t seem to like, since his face immediately darkened upon smelling the scent of it. Levi then looked around like he was searching for something before getting his white cravat off, drenching it in the fluid. His gray-blue eyes met with the teal eyes of the boy.

“This’ll sting a little”, he said as he swiftly grabbed him by the hair to prevent him from escaping while he’d clean the dirty and deep wound. The wound obviously came from one of their blades, so someone must have tried to kill him when they found out they were being dragged to their early graves. The thought of his squad dying because of this stupid brat… it didn’t stop him at all. The beast was struggling in his hands, just as he had predicted, but the firm grip on his hair was weakening his fighting capabilities. He was in terrible pain and was breathing heavily, but from what Levi saw in his eyes, he was giving in to the pain.

_“Maybe he knows I’m trying to help…”_

He then head butted him in the stomach and Levi’s expression immediately changed.

“Hold still!” he yelled and bashed the youth into the tree, careful not to hurt his arm even more. This time he was the one pressing the beast against a tree, not allowing him to escape. He got closer to the brunette’s face to look him in those determined eyes he had. He was breathing heavily and his eyes were radiating hatred. Good. The Titan wannabe then scoffed loudly as he finally closed his mouth, so that the filthy particles from his mouth didn’t reach Levi anymore. Levi then got back to the job.

_“Or he’s just being a pain in the ass…”_

After a minute of cleaning his wound, he bid farewell to the cravat he held in his arms before folding it to a clean side to wrap it around the man’s open wound. The beast twitched and looked into Levi’s eyes again with a fierce expression, but as Levi didn’t look back, he just calmed down again, allowing the short man to wrap the cloth around his burning arm. Suddenly, he felt pressure being lifted from him and he looked at the Captain again, staring at him for a while.

Levi sat down to rest his leg and just stared back as the Titan wannabe slowly got away from the tree, caressing the bandage with his cheek. The other was just observing him as he did that, hoping he wouldn’t try to bite it off. Just as he thought of that, the wild human tried to get it off.

“Hey! Keep that on!” Levi growled as the boy desperately tried to pull the cloth off, but Levi was having none of it and immediately grabbed the boy on the shoulders to make him stop, but stiffened when he felt sudden pain going from his thumb up his whole upper arm. He harshly pulled his hand away to see deep teeth marks in his skin, accompanied by a small trail of blood that the boy’s left eyetooth caused. He angrily puffed before looking back at the beast he had tried to fix up a moment ago and was shocked to see that the boy’s eyes were already on him. They kept staring at each other for a while before the boy guiltily approached him, having his head lowered as Levi just stared. His head soon sank even lower and stayed there for a couple of seconds before he slowly raised his head again to look him in the eye. The Captain felt his façade slowly melt.

 He then suddenly sat up, his face uncomfortably close to Levi’s. The older man tried to pull away, but the human’s determined look was telling him he couldn’t escape this now. After they had stared into each other’s eyes for a few seconds, Levi’s gaze fell at the key that was swinging back and forth from the boy’s neck before he shot him an insecure look, hoping the boy would understand what Levi was asking. As the boy’s eyes stayed fixated at Levi’s, the soldier slowly wrapped his thin fingers around the key the beast had on and took a better look at it. The key was made of gold and was oddly shaped- Levi immediately knew that such a key had to be special. He then turned it around to see a few symbols engraved in it and squinted his eyes to see what was written on it. The script was in a bad shape since it was obviously engraved into the key a long time ago, but it was clear enough to be readable.

“Eren”, he softly said and looked back up to meet the boy’s wide eyes. The human wasn’t showing any kind of sign that he had read it correctly. But what was he expecting from him, to understand what he had said?

He looked back at the key before letting it fall back.

“Is that your name? Eren?” Levi silently asked, looking back into his eyes. The boy’s eyes slowly trailed down to the key, then back at the Captain’s eyes. They looked quite nice and relaxed, for a change.

The shorter man nodded in understanding.

“Nice to meet you, Eren”, he said in monotone voice and a blank expression on his face, offering him his hand to see if manners were still hidden somewhere deep within him. Considering how Eren immediately fell down at all fours to look at his hand from the side, he realized he didn’t have any. Eren then slowly trailed his fingers down the bite mark he made before grabbing Levi’s hand with both of his hands, raising it up so he could take a better view at it. Levi watched him, cold as ever.

The boy softly stroked his fingers like he didn’t believe they were real and then took a look at the lines that were located on his palm, softly touching them in awe. As he looked at his palm, he realized that his lines were different, but the symmetry and resemblance between his and the unknown person’s hand was striking. Levi could see the boy’s eyes light up and suddenly felt bad for him yet again, but Eren was by no means sad or was disappointed in his life. The only thing that seemed to interest him at that time was the Captain’s hand that he was once again clenching with both of his, like he was afraid the other of his species would leave. He then pushed Levi’s fingers down so they’d intertwine with his. And for the first time, Levi saw the boy’s face light up as a small smile stretched itself out. Levi’s eyes widened.

Suddenly, Eren’s head turned to look at Levi, to which Levi flinched. There was no smile adorning his face anymore.

“Nam?” Eren suddenly muttered and it took Levi a few seconds to realize that the brat had just spoken something. His eyes began to widen. He didn’t expect to hear that from the animalistic boy sitting close to him. No matter how weird the sound he made sounded and was barely recognizable as speech, it was still the human way of communicating. He was human. Levi’s face then took on a stern expression again.

“Huh?”

“Nahm?” the human asked and Levi spent a few seconds to think of what the Titan wannabe in front of him was trying to say. He then tried to remove his hand from Eren’s, but the boy didn’t allow him to.

“My name?” he slowly asked, hoping Eren would understand what he was asking.

The boy didn’t respond and his expression stayed the same, the ever present determination in his look.

“Levi.”

Eren tilted his head as if he was confused. After a few seconds of them just staring at each other and listening to the sounds of the crickets’ heavenly concert, Eren looked down and muttered something that Levi couldn’t really understand.

“…What…?” he softly asked, to which Eren responded by rising his head back up. He stayed silent for a few seconds, as if he was contemplating something or was afraid to repeat the sounds he had articulated.

“Leewhy”, Eren silently said, an insecure expression on his young face.

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Usual chapters won't be that long LOL... I hope you'll enjoy reading my fic. Hopefully they'll come out every Monday.


End file.
